There is a feature in most MMOs that let's you visually hide the helmet you are wearing so you can see your head, and more importantly, others can see your head.

I love to use the hide helmet feature in MMOs. What's the point in spending all that time to make your face, only to be forced to cover it up all the time?

On the other hand, my friend hates this feature with a passion. He wants to see everyone with their helmet on if they are wearing one. He does not want anyone to have the option to turn off anything they are wearing. He thinks this is cheating. He thinks if he sees a character with no helm, it should mean he is not wearing one. Period.

What do you guys think?

Its one of those, "either way is fine" by me features .

I see both points, I believe options should only let you tweak "your own preferences" so if you turn your helmet off, you wont see it. Others still would look at your helmet being equipped as long as it is in fact on you.

Also, lemme mention it is one of those power creep ideas that you are forced to do/wear/think/etc anything. You are not forced, if you pass up a helmet, you deal with the consequences. Thats why I learned to dislike/ignore leet.kids, they always feel being crippled/handicapped by the mechanics if they aren't the omnipresent authority of godly killing powers. You can find a better looking helmet, or you can decide to take it off, the choice is yours.

If I was to design a game, everything would have trade-offs. A helmet would give disadvantages too, like lower chances to hit, and maybe other "mobility and sight penalties". I also wouldn't let gear scale up so heavily to make gimpy characters godly.

A well built, well played character should be 80%+ of the actual power rating. 20% for gear and buffs is okay in my own realm of balance. (subjective, don't fight it)

What? The entire point of the hide helmet feature is to customize how your character looks - especially if the helmet is outright ugly.

Which is 95% of all cases^^

Not having the option to choose whether your helmet is displayed or not, would be a big mistake in my opinion. The look of the character and its armour is a very important part of any graphic MMO and therefore you should be able to decide for your self whether you want to see a helmet or rather the fancy haircut you chose, when you made the character. On top of that, in most games there are very few helmets I could agree with from a style perspective. It doesn't kill me to run around with an ugly helmet, but I would always prefer the option to turn it off.

Depending on the game can go as high as 99%. Always seems to be one helmet I like in a game so at least give the devs that much.

Yes, absolutely hide helmet. This is something Bioware does and it is great. In RPGs, especially games where you customize your character, you want to see their awesome handsome face whilst striking down baddies. Having to hide all that handsomeness is really an offense against the entire community, as everyone should have the opportunity to gaze upon such magnificence.

Seriously, I enjoy looking at my characters.

Ok with me for PvE, but not for PvP.

In PvP the equipment that you actually wear should always show.

Did not vote as none of the options reflects this.

So why not choose to take it off? Because thats the obvious choice you know.

Oh because I am not interested in sacrificing armor and stats just to look good. Like most gamers, I want a cake for now, and a cake for later.

So it is not that important to you after all. Because a moment ago it was all unforgivable offense against the entire community, but when a bit of your stats is at stake, you rather choose not to see awesome face while beating baddies ?

No, it is important that I have the option to hide the helmet while simultaneously benefiting from the stats of wearing the helmet. I hope that is clear.

Contrary to what you see in my avatar I prefer to hide my headgear. Its all about the hair. I love my hair.

I feel that if you want the benefits of a Helmet, than you must accept the side effects, so if you dont want to see a Helmet then you dont wear one.. Same goes for armor (no bikini's)

I just think it is funny what trivialities gamers are asking for sometimes.

Keep going. I am amused.

What is trivial to some is important to others. No need to mock, good Sir.

Its not a triviality, but is an accepted and expected option in MMOs.

I can see the point of it being "cheating" to hide something that is there, but imo it is fixing a design shortcoming. Sure, if I had a helmet on in RL I couldnt hide it, but then I could certainly paint it up to my own liking - which isnt possible in game due to design limitations. So the helmet hide is a compromise.

It is mostly catering to a certain mentality.

This is how I see it. Because the simple solution is given at any time to everyone, which is choice not to wear any helmet. They even made equip/unequip pretty short business with action bars, so it is not even troublesome to manage.

I am still fine with either way. Even though I see how both immersionists/roleplayers and PVPers are right about it.

Name one thing that does not cater to a certain mentality.

Okay this one is catchy.

I can hardly estimate anyone however to enjoy the "lag monster" . I believe this is something commonly uniting all players against a single nemesis.

Seriously, PvP tends to be so fast-paced and intense that you will not have time looking at what others are wearing to determine if you should or shouldn't engage them. The HP numbers have always been the best and truest indicator of how good or bad someone's gear is overall. I don't think individual pieces of gear will give you more info that the HP bar.

So I'm all for hiding helmets and fully recustomizing any and all pieces of gear to MY liking.

I fully understand this. Since Cyrodiil will be its own zone it would not be difficult for ZOS to turn off all cosmetics in that area. This is what Turbine does in LotRO with its PVMP area.

Without the "hide headwear" option we're going to be looking even more the same as we already do.

In reality you can also adjust the colour and style of all your clothes and shields at will, which is very limited in TESO (or any other game of course) by server limitations.

To compensate it's nice to keep at least a bit of individuality or uniqueness by being able to show your character's head.

I think you made my point for me.